The 2015 General Synod of the Church of Ireland got underway in the Armagh City Hotel (Armagh) at 12.00 noon today (Thursday May 7). For the first time, this year the Synod Eucharist took place in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, this morning before the start of General Synod. The preacher was the Bishop of Connor.

Synod proceedings opened with a reading from Scripture and prayer led by the Bishop of Limerick and Killaloe.

Then Mrs Janet Maxwell laid the list of the members of Synod on the table. The Primate nominated Mr Lyndon McCann SC as Assessor for the Synod.

This was followed by the Presidential address by the Most Revd Dr Richard Clarke, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland. He welcomed the new and returning members of Synod. He reminded members that Synod was a gathering of the people of God for his purposes and not a party conference. He welcomed Bishop Kenneth Kearon, Bishop of Limerick and Killaloe, to his first Synod as Bishop.

He welcomed the President of the Methodist Conference, the Revd Peter Murray, and prayed God’s blessing on the future working out of the Covenant between the Methodist Church in Ireland and the Church of Ireland.

The Archbishop noted two retirements from the staff of the RCB, Ms Linda Andrews and Mrs Jenny Compston and the imminent departure of Mr Garrett Casey and welcomed Dr Catherine Smith who will take his place as Synod Officer. He wished former Secretary to the Board of Education (NI) the Revd Dr Ian Ellis well in his return to parish ministry and welcomed Dr Peter Hamill in his place. Chief Officer, Mr Adrian Clements, has announced his plan to retire after the next General Synod and the Primate thanked him for all his work.

In his address the Primate encouraged members to hold to a ‘fundamental understanding of our life as a Church’ that is ‘always and everywhere relational’.

Commenting on the plight of cold–blooded massacres of those of a different religious faith or of the cynical overfilling of boats crammed with migrants from North Africa as well as the evil of human trafficking in the UK and Ireland, he said, ‘We live in a world which has become dangerously non–relational and hence dangerously unstable’.

He continued: ‘The depersonalisation of people so that they become abstract entities with whom we need have no relationship, and for whose safety and dignity we need have no concern, is something against which Christian people must always contend… Part of our task as Christian disciples is to bring back into our world a proper sense of relatedness, rather than allow a retreat into what is, at heart, anonymised unreality.’

The Primate also spoke of the Long–Term Church project and said great progress had been made over the last year. ‘A significant part of the potential success of the initiative will be in supplying both coherence and also a shared, consistently understood and confident long–term vision for the Church of Ireland, one that encompasses a number of existing projects and also launches new ideas arising from the energy and thinking released by the initiative itself,’ he stated.

The Primate also said that as Christians we are called to relate to the society in which we live. ‘Today marks a general election in the UK, in a couple of weeks’ time there will be two referenda in the Republic of Ireland and within the near future there will also be elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly and for the Republic of Ireland’s Oireachtas. We are not a Church community which, for the most part, makes official declarations as to how people should vote. What we do ask is that each individual Christian disciple thinks carefully about the issues before him or her, and about the policies being presented to them and then, without paying undue heed to the sometimes strident and petulant siren sounds that may present themselves as the dominant voice of righteousness, decide in conscience before God what they believe will truly be for the common good, the good of all,’ he said.

The Primate’s full address may be read on the Synod website here.

General Synod continues until Saturday May 9, starting at 10.00 am each day.

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